The following letter was sent to us from St. Petersburg on July 1st:
“…In The Spirits’ Book, book I, Chap. I, #2, I noticed the proposition: Everything that is unknown is infinite. It seems to me that many things are unknown to us but that does not imply that they are infinite. Since the word is found in all editions I requested an explanation to my guide that answered: “The word infinite here is a mistake. It should read indefinite. What should one think about it? ...
Response:
The two words although synonyms in their general sense, have each a special meaning. Here is how the Academy define them:
Indefinite, whose end and limits are not or cannot be determined. Indefinite time. Indefinite number. Indefinite line. Indefinite space.
Infinite that has no beginning or end that has no boundaries or limits. The space is infinite. God is infinite. The mercy of God is infinite. By extension it is said of something that cannot be delimited, the term and by exaggeration, both in the physical as in the moral sense, that everything that is much considered in its kind. It is said particularly for the uncountable. An infinite duration. The infinite contemplation of the elected ones. Globes situated at an infinite distance. My appreciation to you is infinite. An infinite variety of objects. Infinite penalties. There is an infinite number of authors that wrote about this subject.
It results that the word indefinite has a more particular meaning while the word infinite has a more general one; that the first one is preferably used about material things whereas the second about abstract things, hence the former is vaguer than the latter.
The more general sense of the word infinite allows its application in certain cases in which it is not but indefinite while the opposite cannot occur. One can equally say: an infinite duration or an indefinite duration but one could not say God is indefinite, God’s mercy is indefinite.
From that point of view the use of the word infinite in the above mentioned phrase is not abusive and it is not an error. We say more that the word indefinite would not express the same idea. From the time that something is unknown it presents to our mind the vagueness of the infinite, if not absolute at least relative.
For example: You don’t know what is going to happen to you tomorrow hence your thoughts wander in the infinite; the events are the ones that are indefinite. You don’t know the number of stars hence the number is indefinite but it is also infinite to imagination. In the issue in question, it was then adequate to use the word that generalizes the idea, preferably the one that would give it a restrictive meaning.
